Dear Ole Miss Civil Engineering Alumni and Friends:

This semester has been busy, as Katrina relief has generated a fair amount
of activities and work. So it takes me a while to write to you.

Let me first report to you that by official counting the Civil Engineering
Department has 128 undergraduate students this fall, ten more than last
year. For the second year, civil engineering is the department with the
largest undergraduate enrollment in the School of Engineering. Our target is
to grow it a little more, hoping to reach a steady state of about 150
students.

As you know, Katrina hit the coast and devastated New Orleans and part of
Mississippi, when the university was about one week in session. Life has
changed for a lot of people since. Since that time, the university, the
department, faculty and students, all have worked toward the disaster
relief. You can find out university's involvement by following this link:
http://www.olemiss.edu/news/katrina-top.html  Let me report to you the civil
engineering department's involvement:

1. Department took in one University of New Orleans student. She was within
11 hours to graduate. Since we cannot match all her courses, two professors
agreed to do one-on-one courses to help her to graduate.

2. ASCE District 14 President Dr. Steve McCutcheon visited the Department
two weeks after the disaster. Because District 14 consists of Mississippi,
Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia, Dr. McCutcheon also head up the ASCE
national relief effort. He has talked to ASCE students and encouraged them
to assist in the relief effort. Students now work with the Mississippi
Section as well as the national headquarters in the relief effort.

3. In the early stage, students assisted the ASCE Headquarters to check the
accuracy of the links in its Web page aimed at providing information and
service to displaced students and faculty.

4. During last two weeks, students have been assisting the ASCE national
program to help small engineering firms and independent engineers to restore
their business. Students have called vendors such as IBM, Home Depot,
surveying company, HP, ... to convince them to either donate equipment, such
as computer, surveying equipment, AutoCAD software, printers, fax machine,
..., to the two small offices set up at Baton Rouge and Mississippi coast
that all engineers who lost their business can use, or to offer discount
program to engineers who lost business.

5. Dr. Chris Mullen was involved with FEMA before the hurricane landed,
running computer model to predict wind damage to get the counties ready to
request emergency assistance. Last week he was a part of FEMA and MEMA team
to assess damage. Let me quote from him:

"The FEMA MAT inspected the coast from Dauphin
Island, AL, to Plaquemine Parish, LA (including New Orleans).  Two
coastal teams looked at surge primarily, while two wind teams primarily
looked at wind caused damage.  Prior to the full MAT deployment on
September 26, a pre-MAT team had already done at least four flights that
included coastal areas as well as trips up I-59 and US49 to Hattiesburg.
I worked with two wind teams spending a full day (7AM-7PM) and a half in
the field with one and another full day with the other. One full day was
devoted to consensus on a table of contents for the final report and
assigning writing tasks. My last day was spent in two briefings, one to
FEMA management at the AFO in Biloxi, and one to various FEMA
specialists at the JFO in Jackson.

Per MEMA, my focus was on assessing critical facilities. I visited a
hospital in Slidell, LA, the first half day.  The second day I visited
an elementary school in Waveland, an EOC and fire/police station in Bay
Saint Louis, and fire stations, a high school, and an elementary school
in Pass Christian.  The third day, I visited the Gulfport regional
airport and Keesler AFB."

6. Last week the department hosted Dr. David Hui and his research associate
of Mechanical Engineering of University of New Orleans. Dr. Hui is a
collaborator of the department on composite materials. He was rescued by
helicopter on university ground has been hopping in several places. He and
all faculty member of UNO are being called back as UNO will start semester
this Monday. At our initiation he moved from Montana, his previous stop, to
Ole Miss to do some work and to plan for future collaboration. He is now
heading down the coast. The funding provided by the University Research
Office supported his stay.

7. Dr. Hui so happened has been involved in a demonstration project with the
Corps of Engineers of New Orleans of using composite material sheetpiles for
flood walls and levees. Composite material is stronger and does not rust.
Since this area is one of the strength of the department, we look forward to
opportunities in this direction.

As you can see, we are happy that we can contribute to the relief effort,
how ever little it is.

Best wishes,

Alex Cheng
===============================
Alexander H.-D. Cheng
Professor and Chair
Department of Civil Engineering
University of Mississippi
P.O. Box 1848
University, MS 38677-1848
Tel: 662-915-5362
Fax: 662-915-5523
Email: acheng@olemiss.edu
URL: http://www.olemiss.edu/~acheng/
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/civil_eng/